J LIBRAE Y OF CONGRESS 

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! UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. ! 



(©oo's <@uagc of National §ealtl). 



THANKSGIVING SERMON, 



PREACHED BY 



REV. NOAH HUNT SCHENCK, D. D., 



Rector, St Ann's Clxiarch., 



BKOOKLYN. 



JTou ember S6t7i, 1868. 



PUBLISHED BY THE VESTRY. 



BKOOKLYN : 

DAILY UNION STEAM BOOK AND JOB PRESSES, CORNER FULTON AND FRONT STREETS. 

1868. 



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SERMON 



iii John, 2. — " Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper 
and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." 



As drops make the ocean and molecules the mountain, so 
man, the individual, makes up the myriad- aggregate of nation- 
al life. A nation is what its people are, just as the earth is 
what its atoms are. We are lost in the haze of vagueness 
the moment we lose sight of this guide-post principle. Didac- 
tics are dull and unprofitable, except as you sharpen them to 
personal points. Preaching has power as proportioned to its 
individual application. Teaching is efficient only as you adjust 
it to the measure of each capacity, or the scope of each want. 
There is no moral life to a nation to which we can address 
reproof or instruction. There is no character to society which 
we can mould or modify. These things are but the myths of 
theorists and visionaries. We must know a nation only in its 
citizens. We must know society only in its members. The 
whole matter is a question of units, of what each man has and 
is. It is a question of personal endowment, personal opportu- 
nity, personal influence and responsibility, and last, but not 
least, of personal accountability to God. When, then, as upon 
this day of National Thanksgiving, the Ministers of Christ 
are invited by the recognized authorities to lead the people in 



grateful devotions, and speak to the nation a word in season, 
I feel that I can neither in the one case nor the other, attempt 
the discharge of the duty thus devolved, except as I go from 
heart to heart, from ear to ear, that love may be kindled and 
conscience be quickened. 

What the Bishop of Ephesus, by inspiration, wrote to 
Gaius, Christ writes to the world full of souls equally " well 
beloved." And what Christ writes thus in behalf of the soul's 
weal, I proffer as a word in season to the men and women 
who make up this great Commonweal. I hail my country on 
this Thanksgiving Anniversary with the Gospel salutation 
that she may prosper and be in health, even and only as her 
children prosper in personal holiness. This is God's guage of 
individual welfare, and God forbid that we should offer the na- 
tion other standard than this. It is righteousness that exalteth 
a nation, — and we are ignorant of any other righteousness than 
that of Christ, imputed to or acquired by each separate 
soul. It is sin that is a reproach to any people, — and we know 
not of sin except as it has its spring in the heart, and its play 
in the life of each separate man. Between these extremes we 
are to find the oscillation of what is called National Charac- 
ter. Upon this antithesis the moral status of a nation has its 
foundation. " Let the people praise Thee, O God ! yea, let 
all the people praise Thee ;" then can it be said of us, that we 
are a people "fearing God and working righteousness." Let 
the people be given up to the delusion of their own hearts, hon- 
oring God neither in substance nor in speech, and then, on the 
contrary, shall we be justly known and described as a " Na- 
tion of evil doers," " a people that do err in their hearts," " a 
generation of transgressors ;" and then shall " Ichabod" be 
written in letters of flame upon the Nation's frontlet. We 



have no alternative but to mark the swing of the stern pen- 
dulum as it vibrates from the point of approval to the point of 
vengeance, while the dial of the great century clock reveals the 
crisis hours when prosperity ends and decadence begins, or 
again, when anarchy has run its course and order is again en- 
throned. If we accept this to be the true philosophy of na- 
tional life, as it is connected with religion and religious respon- 
sibility, — if there be a God in history, and a divine hand reached 
forth in the Providential direction of national as of personal 
events, does it not become us, in the light of this teaching, se- 
riously to inquire upon, a day like this, what are the true 
constituents of national health, and whether we have held 
them in the organism of our body politic; and furthermore, 
whether we may auspicate well of the future in view of the 
present religious aspects of our American community ? We 
may indulge no auguries of the Nation's prosperity until we 
are well informed of the condition of the Nation's moral 
health. During the past year we have been spared the deso- 
lation of war, the ravages of the pestilence, and the horrors of 
famine. To-day, we bless God for the sweets of peace, and 
the prevalence of physical health, for the " barns filled with 
plenty," and the "presses bursting out with new wine." We 
thank the Glorious Giver that we are again enriched with 
" the fruits of the earth" as well as the il other blessings of 
His manifold providence ;" recalling, as we do, the time-long 
pledge that " seed time and harvest shall not fail." But in view 
of the fact that there is another seed-time and another harvest, 
— a sowing and reaping not conditioned upon the revolving 
seasons, not limited to the boundary of months or even years, 
— a sowing and reaping, which, in their success or failure, are 
to gladden or sadden, not for the twelvemonth's speedy round, 



but for the calm and unending march of the eternal life, let us 
confer together upon this grander theme, that under the guid- 
ance and God-speed of the Holy Spirit, we may help to make 
sure the succession of grateful years, — so that the anthems of 
to-day shall richly reverberate down the glad aisles of the 
future and have their final echoes lost in the trumpet calls of 
the summoning angels. For God's word u standeth sure," and 
centuries hence, as now, as centuries ago, the truth is the 
same to the individual and the nation, that prosperity and 
health are conditioned upon fidelity. 

Since time began, Idolatry and Lying have been the world's 
scarlet sins. As they have most madly rioted in the heart 
and dominated in the life of individuals, — as a consequence in- 
evitable, we have seen them furiously rampant in national life 
Age after age has rehearsed the story of the birth, growth and 
monstrous development of these sins, — of which men are fore- 
warned, against which society passes resolutions of exclusion, 
and which the schools of morality blackballed ; sins which the 
Bible describes in terms of anathema, which the Church 
excoriates in the dogmas of doctrine and the decrees of disci- 
pline, — sins at which God thunders from the cloud canopy 
that floated above the Ark, from the dazzling peaks of 
Sinai, from the lurid darkness of Calvary, in the mad battle 
cry of men who make so many fields the arenas for 
Divine vengeance, and in the belching artillery whose 
thunderous diapason is but the commingling of the sin- 
voices of earth with the wrath-tones of God, — and yet, 
and yet, men bow to stocks and stones, worship sell, 
sense, gold, power, until the nation, inoculate with the 
poison that infects the life of her citizens, finds in her 
councils and in her administration nothing but policies of 



aggrandizement, and schemes of extended empire, and plans 
of oppression, — all the product of the sins which have 
been born and bred in the heart and household of the citizen. 
In like manner has history disclosed to us the culmination in 
national crime of the deceit which men foster in the seclu- 
sion of the inner life, hug up in the secret embrace of their 
individualism, and bring forth for the over-reaching of friend 
or brother, or for the common practice or occasional exigen- 
cies of business life. As men lie to each other in the sense- 
less parlance of fashionable interchange, in the counting 
room, on the hustings, or in the average commerce of the street, 
parlour, and office, so is the nation taught to lie. And what 
have we for result ? In wars, he who can best deceive is the 
ablest strategist. In diplomacy, he who has in finest exer- 
cise the art of the double tongue, or that reticency which 
makes the supjpressio veri accomplish the equivalent of the 
assertio falsi, is hailed as the first of ambassadors. In poli- 
tics, he who best manipulates the masses, by whatever means, 
is the Talleyrand of the hour, most regarded because most 
availing and available. In legislation, the privileged oligar- 
chy make laws, which propose the greatest good to the great" 
est number only as a mask to the greed and corruption which 
fatten and fester in secret. 

These are national sins which follow in the wake of person- 
al indulgence in idolatry and falsehood. To the shame of our 
race let it be said, that these sins have not been confined to 
barbaric eras and savage nations, but on the contrary, seem to 
have a larger development as we approach the highest forms 
of civilization. Idolatry, involving infidelity to God and a 
derogation of His dignity, — lying, involving an insult to the 
Divine command and a direct contravention of the whole sys- 



8 

tern of Gospel morality, ah, how often have these been the pre- 
cursors of ruin to nations and to individuals, — nay, more, to 
Churches, whose office in chief is the enhancement of God's 
glory in worship, and the propagation of His truth in practi- 
cal Evangelism ! In no spirit of terrorism, but that the truth 
may be plainly told, it must be confessed that our people 
and nation are justly obnoxious to the charge of both idola- 
try and falsehood. They are the vices of society and the 
state. The church is invaded by idolatry. The press and 
the platform are poisoned with untruth. The old oracles 
have lying lips. The generation that is now growing to ma- 
turity scarce know what to believe or whom to worship. 
Old land marks are torn down. Old beacon lights are ex- 
tinguished. The traditional teachers are silenced. Venerated 
truths are boldly controverted. Standards are scoffed at. 
The most sacred shrines are denied and altars to unknown gods 
are reared alike in the temples of religion and mammon. I 
appeal to every calm student of the times, to every thinking 
moralist, to every earnest evangelist, to check me if I overstate 
the criminality of the crisis. Historic Rome never knew a more 
enervate luxury than that which now caters to the idolatry of 
sense in this American land. A greater recklessness of moral 
obligation than that which now conditions the extravagance of 
our community has never been known in the history of civil- 
ization. Lying, under the softening epithet of misrepresenta- 
tion, enters as a part of the daily discipline of those callings 
which have the most nattering prestige of success. Can such 
things be, and still God be our God ? Can this Great Nation 
expect to prosper and be in health, while thus outraging the 
very conditions upon which the God of Nations pledges pros- 
perity aud health ? We are proud of this patriot's patri- 



mony, stretching its broad leagues from ocean to ocean, deep 
calling unto deep in the commingled echoes of our midland 
mountain ranges, and sending up to God the glad chorus of 
praise. We are proud of our splendid inheritance of liberty, 
proud of our magnificent resources, of our rapid increase, our 
growing strength, our privileges of culture, our athletic enter- 
prise, our teeming millions, and our religious freedom. As we 
look upon our star-gemmed flag, and upon our heroic history, 
the pulse quickens and the heart beats high. But as we look 
again upon our people bowing before golden calves, upon our 
Churches infested with error, upon our Godless councils and 
our Christless society, upon the enthronement of falsehood and 
the overthrow of truth, we can but cower in the awful dread 
of that coming justice which shall sweep away the " refuge of 
lies," and " utterly demolish the idols/' and with them, the 
idolaters. " No weapon formed against thee, O God! can pros- 
per ; " and therefore it is that men who mail themselves in the 
armor of the world should be warned by those who profess to 
have put on " the armor of God." Therefore it is, that in this 
great centre of our national life, standing in the midst of its 
.squalor and its splendor, looking upon the panorama of mag- 
nificence and misery, with gaunt want and plethoric opulence, 
bitter blasphemy and zealous piety, grouped in contrasts at 
once touching and terrible,' — looking again upon the idols set 
up at the street corners and in church chancels, the desperate 
deceit that parades the pavements, grimly grinning behind 
its mask of gauze, — therefore it is, that we can do no other 
than, Jonah-like, lift up our voices and prophesy against the 
wickednesss of this modern Nineveh. 

We of this nineteenth Christian century have an accumu- 
lated inheritance. We have the riches of the past and the 



10 

ten-fold greater wealth of the present, all combined in the 
spiritual endowment of the generation to which we belong. 
Shall this supremely favored race and country be known in 
history, be known in the record-book of God, as pre-eminent- 
ly the Prodigal of Nations ? As consequents upon the sins 
to which I have adverted, even tbe shallowest observer can 
see that we are not advancing in religious life as in political 
power. Business enterprise and activity far outstrip evangel- 
ic effort. The great wave of emigration that is flowing 
westward has its foaming crest but faintly gilded with flashes 
from the Sun of righteousness. In our new cities they build 
houses for all classes, but no home for the missionary. On 
the thronged silver mountains and in the golden gorges, there 
seems but little place for him of whom it is written, u How 
beautiful upon the mountains," — more beautiful than the glit- 
tering ores of Nevada and California, more beautiful than " the 
cattle upon a thousand hills," — " how beautiful upon the moun- 
tains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that 
publisheth peace." 

To say nothing more of the comparatively feeble aggress- 
iveness of evangelic effort, we have to mourn that religion 
even in its strongest entrenchments, is suffering from the upas- 
shade cast over it by the towering sins of the times. That it 
may perchance be more popular, it is made more sensuous. 
That it may be more attractive, it is made more spectacular. 
That it may satisfy the morbid craving for novelty, it is asso- 
ciated with hot-house errors, planted and forced into false 
vitality and maturity to meet instant exigencies. So that to- 
day the household of every Church in this land has guests 
whom our fathers would have spurned as traitors to the Holy 
Faith. Holding fast to our franchises as citizens and to our 



11 

freedom as a Nation with firmer grip and more heroic resolu- 
tion as the years roll by, — is there any so blind as not to see 
that we are holding with loosening grasp to the " Faith once 
delivered to the saints," and giving up little by little our ad- 
hesion to those redeeming truths which alone have elevated 
the race and decorated the pages of its history? With the souls 
of the great majority of our people fed upon the mere husks 
of truth, may we not hope that the time is near when the 
Prodigal shall " come to himself," and under the lead of a 
giant conviction shall arise and return to the Father. As we 
cannot, dare not, hope or pray for the continuance of " pros- 
perity and health " while outraging the conditions upon which 
alone God gives them, shall we not, with an uplook to the 
Giver and an outlook to the future, humbly and heroically re- 
solve to eliminate these black and blasting sins, and return to 
our fidelity under the Covenant, — having "judgment begin at 
the House of God," making " the tree good " that " the 
fruit may be good," purifying the fountain that the overflow 
may be clear and pure and refreshing, cultivating personal ho- 
liness that we may have " lively stones " for the architecture 
of national truth and righteousness. 

But let us turn from the contemplation of the body stricken 
with disease to the more grateful office of ascertaining the re- 
medies, that we may have at least before us the spectacle of 
ideal health, awaiting in prayer and work the glad hour of 
perfect moral renovation. What are then the essential ele- 
ments of national prosperity and health ? That these are 
moral rather than material, it is scarcely worth while for me 
to debate in the audience of a Bible-believing community. 
In the noble and oft-quoted verse of one who wrote from a 
secular point of view, the state is not a thing of " high-raised 



12 

battlement, thick wall, and moated gate," but an aggregate of 
"men, high-minded men, men who their duties know." 
This introduces us to the first constituent of civil health, 
viz., the knowledge of duty in order to its performance. Where 
shall this be learned ? In the " thin diluted mixture " of phi- 
losophy, or in the incongruous compounds presented in the 
schools of morals, can we receive the infallible teachings which 
are to educate and discipline the man and the Nation ? 
When we have a divine and omniscient Teacher, shall we pre- 
fer one who is human and imperfectly informed ? The Bible 
is given for the education of the world, to be known not 
through the humanly-authorized interpretations of its mean- 
ing, but through the illumination of the Holy Ghost, whose 
office it is to " lead into all truth," and show us the glory of 
it. The man who reads the Bible most, and in the atmosphere 
of prayer, is the wisest man of his generation. God is his 
teacher, and he is being educated for two worlds. He is 
above controversy and doubt, for he lives and learns in the 
vestibule of the Church triumphant. Give me a nation of 
such men, and I will realize before you the ideal of national 
prosperity and health. If then we accept God's guage, we 
must begin by being a Bible-loving and a Bible-learning 
people. 

Again, God made this world for His glory — " the world 
and all that therein is." If we honor Him not by the honest 
confession of our lips, if we give not to Him of " the first fruits 
of all our increase," if we do not make His name and His 
cause paramount, if we be not jealous for Him as our chiefest 
friend and everlasting King, — we rob God, we give His glory 
to another, we become idolators, we are worshippers at other 
shrines, — and we are, for such cause, engloomed in the reflec- 



13 

tions of His frown. There is no escaping this unchanging or- 
dination of the High and Holy One. God must be lifted up 
in our hearts, in our families, in conversation, in trade, in Ca- 
binet and Congress, and in pulpits where now we have but 
Christless sermons, — or heated harangues, whose only Gospel is 
the text on which they are apologetically suspended. If we 
are ashamed of God, He will be ashamed of us. We cannot 
hope to have for our friend one whose association we avoid, 
whose interests give us no concern, and whose name we are 
reluctant to take upon our lips. The question comes to this 
people as to God's people of old, " Choose ye this day whom 
ye will serve." But remember, if we elect the service of God 
it must be according to the Bible code. It is the only statute 
book for the race and for time. O, that the minds of our peo- 
ple would this day accept its prime law for the rule of life — 
" I am the Lord thy God ; thou shalt have none other Gods 
but me"! 

If men would take the Bible for a daily teacher, and adopt 
a noble stand in the habitual honoring of God in practical 
life, one might well assume that the end was reached. But 
there is one thing further. It is true, that it is a consequence 
upon what has already been submitted; still as it involves a 
reduction to practice of what so many merely hold in theory 
and as it moreover shifts our meditation from our obedience 
to God to our brotherhood with man, it therefore becomes en- 
titled to distinct and emphatic mention. This last constituent in 
national prosperity and health is the fair dealing of man with 
man. As you walk along our crowded thoroughfares, and be- 
think you that the majority of those you meet are occupied in 
some scheme or business which purposes in some degree, 
greater or less, the deception of a neighbour, — as you gaze 



14 

upon the streaming masses, and see so many hands ready with 
blinds and so many arms prepared to stiffen in angry or art- 
ful antagonism, does not the head drop and the cheek redden 
with shame, and does not conscience at once inform the mind 
that here we must have pause, and check, and correction. 
The antidote to this great evil is only to be found in a sworn 
fidelity to truth. The relation of man to man is a matter of 
eminent import in all social and national compacts. All gov- 
ernment is for the mutual protection of its citizens. We are 
therefore false to the conditions of citizenship the moment we 
begin a course of deception and overreaching. Prisons are 
provided for the great offenders, but human laws cannot com- 
pass the petty and nameless, or the secret and exceptional 
cases. As different hands may plant the separate trees that 
make the forest, so different men, in their individual conduct 
in this regard, sooner or later make up the character which 
a nation shall wear before God and the world. Nay, the pec- 
cadillos of the boy become the crimes of the man, and so the 
conduct of the individual is projected into the career and makes 
the character of the official, and thus the temper of the state is 
toned. Then comes the reflex influence upon the people, and the 
radiating influence upon the outside world. Every man must 
" speak truth with his neighbor," if we are to have a national 
character to be proud of. The evil of which we speak is 
colossal, as it is hideous. The great poet, who, three centu- 
ries ago, apostrophized the fatal fact that this world was so 
giving to lying, would now stand dumb before the hydra- 
headed life and the serpent-like activity of this petted off- 
spring of him who is best described as the " Father of Lies." 
JS T ow, as the antagonism to all this, we must cultivate and in- 



15 

corporate a high-toned fidelity. The duty is with each man 
for himself. It is moreover a duty for the Parent, the Teacher, 
the Employer, the Voter, the Official. What a halcyon day, 
when we can look into each others's faces, and know that it is 
not a mask, but a man that we- see. when every man's 
word will be better than his bond, as the freedom and nobility 
of truth are better than the slavery and narrowness of pledges! 
What a day for the Xation! "What a guarantee of the endur- 
ance of our popular liberties, which nothing but the craft of 
politicians can ever subvert! What an enobling of our hu- 
mauity! What dignity, what true power, what beneficent in- 
fluence will it give to our Xation, making it not so much the 
" land of promise" to the later generations, as has been already 
claimed, but rather the land of benignant and abundant reali- 
zations for the humanity of the future! 

I have spoken of what must be regarded as the blatant sins 
of our time and country. — the sins that damp the ardor of our 
Thanksgiving, — the sins that blemish our escutcheon even as 
they are known to have more to do than aught else in the 
damaging of personal character, and the crippling of the 
church. Recoiling from them, we find in their proposed correc- 
tion distinctly displayed the true constituents of national 
prosperity. Looking at the disease and then at the antidote, 
we bring out to view and apply God's guage of national 
health. We deem such a discussion a word in season upon a 
day like this, and moreover, beg to present it as in association 
with our Thanksgiving, that we may indulge a wise discrim- 
ation when we come before God to thank him with unfeigned 
lips. We have much to be grateful for, and much to mourn 
over. Let the one be as a foil to the other, that our worship 
be wise and that our meditation be profitable. Let it not 



16 

be understood that I despair of the Republic or despair of the 
Faith. I believe in the triumph of both. Ephraiin "joined to 
idols " was " let alone." But he was not deserted forever. Left 
for a time, that he might know the chastening of a hidden 
God, the hour came when Ephraim said " What have I any 
more to do with idols?" Even now, arguing from what 
Heaven has already showered upon this fruitful land, may 
we not fondly indulge the thought that the good and for- 
bearing God is speaking to us as to His people of the olden 
time, "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim % how shall I deliver 
thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set 
thee as Zeboim V But the divine purpose, however benign, 
finds its accomplishment through the administration of an 
even-handed justice. What tribulations we shall endure as a 
church and a nation, before the day comes when there shall 
be no discordant note in our paeans of thanksgiving, is known 
only to Him who sitteth in the Heavens. But that these possi- 
ble trials be mercifully modified or wholly forefended, depends 
upon our promptly, prayerfully, hopefully, obediently, accepting 
God's guage of personal and national prosperity and health. 

If New York would but give to God its gains for one day, 
if the churches would vindicate the true unity of the Faith 
they hold, and teach by one year of concerted prayer and 
preaching, and hearty work for the souls outside the fold, if 
the men who vote would give up for one year the cramping 
bias and bitter prejudice of party, and resolve to make hon- 
esty and capacity the tests of candidateship, — we might inaug- 
urate a moral emancipation that would " make glad the city 
of our God," rending the shackles of spiritual slavery, robing 
the nation in garments of righteousness, and enthroning God 
in the hearts, and homes, and councils, of our people. 



17 

And now, my brethren, for our libation of thanks. We 
praise God for our Country, and bless him that we have a land 
and a liberty that excite within us the true patriot emotion. 
We thank God that dove-eyed peace has perched upon our 
standards. We are grateful for the privileges of popular edu- 
cation. But we cannot be grateful for public schools where 
the Bible is shut out. We cannot heartily welcome a peace 
which is charged with an unrelenting bitterness, and upon 
which the red eye of war looks with fierce discontent. We 
cannot be profoundly thankful for a country, however magni- 
ficent in resource, which does not contribute adequately to 
the glory of God in the propagation of His truth, for a free- 
dom whose franchises are not made subsidiary to the libera- 
tion of the race from the slavery of sin. 

We are here to thank the Head of the Church for the Bible, 
and for the blessed Family of the Faith. And with our notes 
of gratitude we mingle our solemn protest against those who 
derogate from the majestic office of the one as the sole rule 
of faith and practice, and the Catholic constitution of the 
other as embracing all lovers of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

As Protestants we lift up our hearts to God in the glad re- 
affirmation of Gospel truth, disentangled from the glosses and 
distinctly severed from the idolatries of Rome. We rejoice in 
the glorious successes of Protestantism, and have only a word 
of pity for the men who, seeking for the proofs of its failure, 
find them only in their own treason to the cause they are 
sworn to defend. 

We thank our bounteous Father for the affluence of the 
harvest, and for the many blessings of increase which have 
followed upon industry and enterprise. But we can but de- 
precate the unfaithful stewardship which turns the key upon 



18 

the barns of plenty, while the cry of the poor comes wailing 
upon the ear. 

We are here as citizens, just at the close of a great political 
canvass, and we have to bless God that law has been vindi- 
cated and order preserved, but we have no words of righteous 
indignation sufficiently strong to characterise the fetid pollu- 
tion through which the car of state is dragged, as it passes 
from one official management to another. 

We are assembled to-day as Christians struggling on and up 
to the better land, and our voices mingle in sweet acclaim to 
Him who has given us the largest religious liberty, — an un- 
shackled ministry and a free pulpit. Can we, however, be ig- 
norant of the fact that this liberty upon occasion degenerates 
into license, and that a free pulpit becomes at times the plat- 
form where men broach unchallenged the gravest errors or the 
wildest vagaries ? Do we not see it widen into an arena for 
the debate of merely moral and semi-secular issues, or still 
again for the more passionate displays of political pugilism. 

We are met under the rooftree of our Church home, and as 
Churchmen we desire to record our gratitude for a reunited 
Church, which now, as formerly, has its one standard planted 
in every section of our wide spread land. Upon us blessings 
have fallen as the dew upon Hermon. God has been with us 
in the preaching of the Word and in the prayers of our peo- 
ple ; and this anniversary should be signalized by hearty 
thanks for the gift of the Comforter. That we, like other 
Churches have had to observe within our borders the exhibi- 
tion of new phases of Faith, is not to be concealed. That there 
is a mighty movement of the mind of Protestant Christendom 
away from the old moorings has become a patent fact. There 
is a tide setting towards Individualism. There is a tide 



19 

towards the free-thinking of the German Schools. There is a 
current towards Home. Again, there is an eddy in which 
many are whirling who are dissatisfied with what they have 
and are, and yet know not what to adopt or whither to drift. 
The individualistic tendency has its logical conclusion in ec- 
clesiastical anarchy. The German movement has for its goal, 
universal salvation under the tuition of the inner light. The 
drift towards Rome involves the inane attempt to reconcile a 
paradox for a time, and the final acceptance of the dogmas of 
the Yatican without limit or condition, — Infallibility, Transub- 
stantion, Mariolatry and a calendar of idols. We cannot 
thank God for such developments, nay, rather should we not 
add a suffrage to the Litany and pray. " From these and all like 
departures from the Faith, Good Lord, deliver us." Still we 
know not but that God has some grand design in permitting 
this uprooting of old trees. In their place may he not give us 
some exotics from His own garden, which in this new soil 
shall have a bloom and a fruitage that shall honor Him more. 
Meantime and until we see the arm of the Lord made bare, 
let us " tread the old paths " and " stand fast in the liberty 
wherewith Christ hath made us free," and " hold to the form 
of sound words," and " contend earnestly for the Faith once 
delivered to the Saints." 

We have but just begun, as Long Island Episcopalians, an 
independent Diocesan existence. That the creation of this 
new Diocese should be to us occasion of thanksgiving has 
been matter of pleasing anticipation. We hail the newly born 
Diocese, and invoke for it the baptism of the Holy Ghost. 
Here is a distinct domain,wherethe Church may have its largest 
development even as here it has now its full integral existence. 

Shall the Church of Long Island begin and continue it 



career by a policy of narrowness and literalism, of unchristian 
exclusiveness and pharasaic arrogance, or, while faithful to our 
traditions and true to our conservative temper and obedient to 
law, shall it not prove the reality of its catholicity, and its love 
for the communion of saints, and its devotion to the true prin- 
ciples of Christian unity, by proffering the cordial hand of fel- 
lowship to all men of prayer, and by inscribing kindly words of 
welcome upon the lintels of its church doors. God grant that 
here we may have a Church that shall, while zealous for Christ, 
let its " moderation be known unto all men !" God grant that 
here we may have a Church from which all extremism and all 
partisan bitterness, and all party tactics and drill, may be for 
ever excluded ; that here may be a household of the Faith, 
where Bishop and brethren may live and labor together in 
Christ, in all the sweet sympathy and gushing confidence of 
those who have a common aim in the glorifying of God 
through the salvation of His children! God grant that all 
error and strange doctrine may be driven out and kept out ! 
As loyal churchmen let us maintain our stand upon ground 
that is distinctly Protestant, and oppose an unwavering front 
to the rank treason of the hour, as displayed in the preaching 
and posturing of Sacramentalism — in the atrocious und un- 
blushing effrontery of attempting to force a Romish Ritual 
upon a Protestant Church. God grant that the soil 
of Long Island may give place to no such foundations, 
and the Churchmen of Long Island extend sympathy to no 
such treachery to the simple Faith of Jesus! For a Diocese 
and a Church after the Christly, Primitive and Reformatory 
models we do now and always lift up heart and voice in grate- 
ful ascription. We do not know how to thank God for less 
than this ; we dare not thank Him for less than this. 

To you, dear people of St. Ann's, I offer the benediction of 



21 

the Text. With thanksgiving for the past, should always be 
associated resolves of richer returns in the future. This is the 
reduction of ideal gratitude to earnest reality. As God has 
been beneficent, by this token let ns be braver, more ener- 
getic, more prayerful. JVow, with one foot resting on the thresh- 
old of the future, let us turn heart and eye and hand to God, 
and crown and cover our sacrifice of praise with the pledges 
of a holier life ; accepting each one for himself the guage which 
God has established for the individual and the Nation, and 
opening up the heart to the wise and discriminating saluta- 
tion, " Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayst 
prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." 

There is one ascription of praise which we can all make to 
the lavish and loving Giver, without the modifications which 
sinful hearts and human responsibility at times so sadly im- 
pose. There is one source of gratitude which has no admix- 
ture. There is one Rock of rejoicing where all can stand 
emancipate — fearless, robed and radiant in the hope that 
maketh not ashamed. And now, my brethren, lift up your 
hearts, yea, lift them up unto the Lord. Let us join, in the 
strength of our faith, in the warmth of our love, in the sweet- 
ness of our communion together in Jesus, and send heaven- 
ward to-day our grateful greeting to the Captain of our Sal- 
vation, — and oh ! that we could rend the skies with our glad 
chorus of praise, " Thanks be to God for His unspeakable 

gift." 



